L+R send to a stereo AUX on a C3500 w/ CDM48

[EthanParticipant]

I’m setting up a stem for a streaming application. I want to take the L+R mains on a C3500 / CDM4800 system, and send the channels to a stereo mix bus (in addition to feeding the line arrays). In the mix bus I can fold in ambient mics and other content that can be processed & patched out separately to the streaming video switcher.

I can go old school and patch the mains out a couple of XLR ports and loop the XLR cables right back into the system and then process the L+R channels like any other audio inputs, send them to a mix, then patch the mix out to the streaming equipment. But this chews up physical ports that I’d rather not waste.

Is there a way to send L+R mains to a stereo AUX?

[ArtParticipant]

Use a matrix and send the L+R to the matrix and then send the Matrix to it’s own outputs where you can process them separately.

[JayParticipant]

I’ll give you 2 relatively easy ways to do to.

1) Setup a stereo group.

Remember, Main LR is just a fancy name for a stereo group (LCR and 5.1 add a lot more).
Assign the channels you want to this group, in addition to LR, and they will all track the same post-fade. Don’t forget to assign fx (or different FX depending on the room).

2) Get on FW 1.70+

On the newer FW you can route mixes back in, including mains, all staying in the 96k digital domain.

Do you mix down to LR, as normal. Assign LR to a stereo matrix, do all the output EQ/delay/etc. on the matrix.
Now, assign LR back in to a stereo channel and assign it to a stereo group. This is your streaming feed.
Add whatever other channels you want to your streaming feed, don’t forget to delay room mics as necessary.

Be careful to not feed any channels from the main LR mix back into the stream mix. While I can’t confirm it, because of the loop-back to input, I would suspect the streaming feed is no longer sample aligned with the initial feed. A channel feeding both may cause an interesting combing effect.

Jay

[EthanParticipant]

Hi Art, Thanks for the reply. Good idea and it works just fine. I was able to Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see a way to do it. ut the L+R into an unused matrix, and then somewhat puzzling, I was add the ambient mics into the matrix containing the LR, just as though it was a mix bus. I’ve always thought that matrix busses were only used to combine mix busses. But I’m not going to argue – it’s working and that’s all I really care about! Thanks!

[EthanParticipant]

hmmm. somehow my last reply got garbled.

Art, I have it working. Still not sure why a matrix is letting me fold in channels at will, but I’m not going to argue.

Jay, We’re on 1.7 and I’m still learning my way around the finer details of the surface. Seem like 1.7 treats a matrix bus similar to a mix bus. Combing & feedback doesn’t seem to be a problem from what I have running so far. The ambient stuff is not sent into into the main mix. The ambient channels are not muted in the main mix, but only to let the ambient audio pass through to the matrix. After experimenting, it seems if I select the matrix, I can control the volume of the ambient mics folding into the matrix with the ambient faders, just as in a mix bus. This yields the L+R mains going to the stream, with a controllable amount of ‘live room’ feel from the ambients. Not sure I need to use a stereo group as I can patch the matrix out to some XLRs. Yes I do need to add a delay needed for the ambient mics on this stem so the overall time alignment is reasonable. Appreciate the advice!

[BradParticipant]

The new feature to add inputs into a matrix can be quite handy for this situation. saves having to make an aux or group just for a couple of channels

[Author]

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